Local fighter Jonavin Webb ready for any challenge
“What are you fighting for?” is emblazoned across the back of Jonavin Webb’s hoodie. The phrase isn’t just targeted toward the Marlton-born fighter, he poses that question to everyone.
“Everyone should be thinking about that,” Webb said. “What are you waking up every day to do? Are you here to be average? Are you waking up and fighting for something?”
Webb is a professional fighter in the Cage Fury Fighting Championship. He owns and operates a mixed martial arts gym in the town he now calls home, Washington Township.
Like many kids across the country, Webb got into wrestling at a young age and wrestled his for four years at Cherokee High School, taking home a couple first-place finishes at the district tournament and a first-place finish at the regional tournament, resulting in an appearance at the state tournament.
Despite an impressive high school wrestling resume, Webb said he began to shift his focus toward Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, a different style of grappling, while still at Cherokee.
“I walked into a gym one day and I remember seeing a couple of older gentlemen. I was still in high school, and I thought I was really good at wrestling,” Webb recalled. “I walked in and said ‘I’m going to beat these guys up, this is going to be easy.’ They moved around me and submitted me so many times, and I was in awe. I couldn’t figure out what they were doing to me, but that day made me want to figure it out. I wanted to be able to do that to someone else. Since that day it’s been in my head that I want to master jiu-jitsu.”
Webb eventually earned his black belt from Professor Brian McPherson.
The transition from jiu-jitsu to full-on mixed martial arts is one that not many grapplers make. For Webb, it was a bucket list thing to fight.
It started when Webb ran into someone who owned an amateur fighting organization in Atlantic City who mistook him for a fighter due to his cauliflower ear and offered him a chance to fight. When Webb initially declined, the man gave him his contact information.
“I was only doing jiu-jitsu for a couple of years at this point,” Webb said. “I remember looking at it and being like ‘I’ll never use this number ever.’”
Webb, a freshman wrestler at then-Gloucester County College, who was falling out of love with the sport, looked at the phone number and questioned what it would take to qualify for a fight.
“He said there were no qualifications, it’s amateur so you can fight now if you want to,” Webb said.
As it turned out, there was a fight two weeks out. Webb brought the opportunity to his jiu-jitsu coach. The rest was history. He took the fight, despite never throwing a punch in practice, and won.
“I was so addicted to the thrill of the fight I haven’t turned back since,” he said.
From there, Webb signed his first professional contract with the CFFC.
Webb, a self-described well-rounded fighter, brings a black belt in jiu-jitsu along with boxing and kickboxing skills to make him a problem both standing and on the ground for welterweight fighters.
He is a former welterweight champion of the CFFC who has fought in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. His next fight takes place on Feb. 16 at the Hard Rock Casino in Atlantic City, and an impressive showing could mean a promotion to the UFC.
“These fights are on UFC Fight Pass, which is a huge thing,” he said. “All the matchmakers watch the shows, it’s a good way for them to see you. I’m already back on the cusp again. Since I left the UFC, I’m on a four-fight win streak. It’s all about having a great performance and getting re-signed.”
The fight, in Webb’s opinion, is the easiest part. He said the nine weeks of training leading up to the fight are the hardest part.
“Training two to three times per day, cutting the weight to make 170 pounds when I walk around at 200,” he described. “The sacrifice of training so often you is can’t see your family as much. That’s the tough part. Fighting for 15 minutes is a big thrill, but the nine weeks people don’t see, that’s the hard part.”
When Webb steps into the cage he believes he has the ultimate home field advantage.
“When I show up to a fight, I show up with people I care about and they care about me,” he said. “The place has an atmosphere you can’t explain with words.”
Webb walks to the cage with the song “Oh my” by The Partysquad to put him in the proper mood. From there, a transformation occurs.
“Are there people that are better than me at fighting? I think so. When I’m in there and that crowd’s there, something happens where I’m a video game and I’m out there playing and my friends are working the controls. I can feel my opponents drain out when everyone is building me up. I think having that is what makes me different.”
When he’s not fighting, Webb is running classes at the gym he operates in Washington Township. His goal is to give direction to kids, just as his coach, McPherson, gave to him.
“If 50 kids walk in and I can help 30 of them find direction, maybe the other 20 already have a direction, that’s a huge win for me. That’s the most important part of my business.”
